


Don't Wake Me Up

by queenofkadara



Series: Vir'Abelasan: Abelas & Athera Lavellan [5]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, Maybe DA4 will let them have a happy ending, Maybe we shouldn't hold our breath though, Post-Trespasser, Sad Ending, Smut, They deserve better I know and I'm really sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 07:28:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16132520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofkadara/pseuds/queenofkadara
Summary: When Athera hears her ex-lover’s voice again after two years of silence, she can’t quite believe her ears. It’s a figment of the Fade and nothing more, she’s sure of it.But Abelas is here. He’s here in her dream, and with a wrench of joy and despair, she realizes the truth: that her attempts to let him go have been a complete and utter failure.******************This is a post-Trespasser sequel toThe One Who Will Live On.A few people requested it, so here it is. NSFW smut, as always.





	Don't Wake Me Up

**Author's Note:**

> I originally hadn't planned to write this, but a few lovely readers requested it, and at first I didn't think it would work... But then I got the exact right seed of an idea from a lovely commenter, and voilà - this is the result. So a huge, enormous thank you goes out to [09Tiff86](https://archiveofourown.org/users/09Tiff86/pseuds/09Tiff86). Thank you for your comments, and your encouragement, and for enjoying this little series. Consider this sequel dedicated to you. xo

Out of my way, I'm king of the world  
Just for the day until it all burns  
Don't wake me up, just let me dream  
It's never enough, it's never enough…

[”Don’t Wake Me Up”, by the Newton Brothers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYNnau8hDTg)  
******************

Abelas watched with a critical eye as the _da’panelaan_ sparred and drilled.

He could easily tell which recruits were new; roughly a third of the elves in the room were tense with nerves, skittish as they flinched from their sparring partners’ blows. The city elves were particularly obvious, distinctive from the fright in their eyes at the use of magical attacks. The more practiced recruits were firm and sure, dodging and striking with a strength born from certainty. Abelas wandered slowly amongst them, pointing out vulnerabilities and commending the more swift and clever tactics that he saw in use. 

“Stop! Please, please stop…” A shrill cry rang out from the back of the room, and Abelas turned at the sound. The trainees in the area had stopped sparring, and a small group of them were clustered around a young elf who was crumpled on the ground. 

They parted silently as Abelas approached. He gazed sternly down at the shivering _da’panelan_ on the floor. “On your feet,” he said, and the young elf slowly stood, his head hung low with shame. 

Abelas frowned. “What happened?” 

The young soldier took a deep, shuddering breath. “The magic,” he whimpered. “It’s… I can’t defend against it. It’s too fast, I can’t-” 

“You can, and you will,” Abelas interrupted. “You know the principles. You will practice them, and you will learn.” 

He stared expectantly at the young soldier until he nodded his head, then turned to the mage who had been attacking him. “Work with him in private,” Abelas ordered. “Every night, until he no longer shies away.” The mage nodded confirmation, and Abelas raised his voice. “Dismissed, all of you. We will resume in the morning.” 

The recruits stood straight and nodded a sharp salute, then racked their weapons on the walls before filing out of the training room. Abelas made his way back to the table at the front and watched their departure carefully, taking note of the tidiest recruits, the ones who seemed the most zealous, and the ones who looked the most defeated. He would pass the information on to Fen’Harel when he returned from dealing with the qunari. 

Some time later, Abelas was testing the balance of their practice staves when a calm and gentle voice captured his attention. “I believe the stock of fire staves are particularly worn. We should attempt to replace some of them soon.” 

Abelas turned to see Fen’Harel slowly entering the room. “Ha’hren,” Abelas greeted. “I thought you would not yet return for another week.” 

Fen’Harel gave him a wan smile. “The qunari problem was more time-sensitive than I had thought,” he explained. The rebel commander looked weary, which surprised Abelas; Fen’Harel had deemed the qunari to be more of a distraction than an outright threat.

“The problem is dealt with?” Abelas asked.

Fen’Harel nodded. “But there was a complication,” he said, and Abelas realized that the Dread Wolf’s expression wasn’t just fatigued. It was distinctly sorrowful. 

Fen’Harel sighed. “The issue was more nuanced than I originally told you,” he said. “The qunari found us through the Inquisition.”

Abelas’s stomach gave a sudden lurch as Fen’Harel continued. “Our spies encountered theirs. It was fortuitous in the end. I was able to reclaim this.” He held out his left hand. 

The Dread Wolf’s palm glowed with a soft verdant light - a light that was distinctly and sickeningly familiar. Abelas’s heart leapt into his throat, and his gaze flew up to the Dread Wolf’s face.

 _Athera. Vhenan._ “Is she… did you…?” he rasped.

“No!” Fen’Harel exclaimed. He took a quick step forward. “No. She is alive. I would not…” He trailed off and bowed his head slightly, and Abelas inhaled deeply to calm his selfish surge of resentment. Fen’Harel may have spared Athera for now, but they both knew it was a temporary reprieve. 

Fen’Harel lifted his face again, and his expression was sad but calm. “The mark almost killed her, but she is alive,” he said. “Her arm, however…” He sighed. “I could not save the arm. The magic was too thoroughly entwined in her flesh. It will have fallen away by now.”

Abelas stared at him, bile rising sourly in his throat. He thought of Athera’s hands, slender and strong, her fingers wrapped confidently around her daggers. He remembered the way she wielded them like extensions of her arms, one shining blade whipping in the wake of the other, and her long dark braid spinning behind her like a dragon’s tail. And now one of those dagger-wielding arms was gone…

Dimly he realized something strange about Fen’Harel’s words, and he swallowed the bitter taste at the back of his tongue before speaking. “What do you mean, ‘by now’? How long ago did all of this occur?”

“A week ago,” Fen’Harel replied, his eyebrows tilting in apology. “I had pressing business with Briala that required immediate attention. Ensuring security for the eluvians that the qunari had attempted to control.” He took a tentative step closer. “It could not wait. I am sorry I did not tell you sooner.”

Abelas automatically shook his head. “No, of course. The eluvians are essential.” He numbly walked over to his desk and looked down at the notes he’d been taking about their soldiers-in-training, but the script was as good as gibberish under his unseeing eyes. 

Fen’Harel had seen Athera a week ago. She’d almost died a week ago, and then she’d lost an arm.

A week ago, Abelas had been teaching the basics of meditation and magical defense to a batch of new _da’palenaan_. It seemed so inconsequential now; going through drills, teaching basic magical theory while Athera almost lost her life, then lost a limb instead.

His ribs felt entirely too full, but he forced himself to breathe nevertheless. He gazed down at his notes with burning eyes. “Thank you for the report,” he said gruffly. “I… will have these notes prepared for you in the morning.” His chest might be throbbing with distress, but he had tasks to finish up. Now was not the time to mourn his ex-lover’s ersatz arm. 

He lifted his pen and stared dumbly at the parchment on his desk. It took a long, numb moment for him to realize that Fen’Harel was still there. 

The rebel commander was silent, his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes heavy with sympathy, and Abelas pursed his lips with a hint of pique. It was much harder to hide his distress with the Dread Wolf watching. “Is there another task you require that’s more pressing at this time?” he asked.

Fen’Harel watched him in silence for another interminable moment, and Abelas forced himself not to fold his arms defensively. 

Finally Solas spoke. “You should go to her.”

Abelas stared at him in surprise, his annoyance instantly fading into a burn of longing. To see Athera again… 

It was all he wanted. The idea of seeing her - the warm and steely grey of her eyes, the freckled ivory of her skin, the silken chestnut strands of her floating hair... It was the strongest impulse in his body and the most desperate wish he’d had in years.

With a huge effort of will, Abelas shook his head. “I cannot. I… There are duties here. Training in the morning. Notes,” he said lamely, with a vague wave at the parchment on his desk. 

Solas shot him a slightly sardonic look, but Abelas doggedly pressed on. “It is not only this. She told me she did not want me to visit her in the Fade. She said that meetings in the Fade were not real.” He swallowed painfully. “I will not impose where I am not wanted.”

The chiding tilt of Solas’s eyebrows deepened. “Lethallin, I hardly think she would refuse a Fade visit from you right now.” 

Abelas was silent. The steely sternness of his disciplined mind was telling him to be strong, to remain here where his duty called, but every inch of his body was screaming at him that Solas was right. It was extremely unlikely that Athera would reject a meeting in the Fade. She had basically said as much the last time they had seen each other two years ago.

He took a deep breath, then lifted his desperate gaze to his commander’s face again. “Are you certain?” he said. “For me to see her… You condone this?” 

Solas’s sympathetic gaze softened even further, and he reached out to squeeze Abelas’s shoulder. “It is not a crime to offer comfort to someone you love,” he said softly. 

Then he lifted his chin slightly, and a hint of the Dread Wolf’s command returned to his voice when he spoke again. “You will be discreet about our plans. I know she will ask you,” and a fond tilt lifted the corner of his lips, “but I trust you will keep your counsel about our activities.”

“Of course,” Abelas said immediately. In truth, he was not remotely interested in speaking. All he wanted was to _see_ her. He wanted to hear her voice brimming with heat and humour, feel the smoothness of her body under his palms and taste the sweet-and-salt of her on the tip of his tongue… 

Then Fen’Harel squeezed his shoulder more firmly. “This is an exceptional circumstance,” he said, his quiet voice distinctly steely now. “It cannot be a recurrent happenstance, and it is not a boon I would grant to anyone else. You understand this?”

Abelas staunchly met his commander’s silvery eyes. “Yes, Fen’Harel,” he said. 

Solas’s hardened eyes melted slightly, and he squeezed Abelas’s shoulder once more before turning toward the door. “We will speak again in the morning,” he said.

Abelas nodded. “Ha’hren.” He replaced his pen on the desk and ran a shaking hand along the length of his braid. He had another few agonizing hours to wait until Athera’s customary late-night dreams would commence, but there was no point pretending he would get any work done in the meantime. 

Then Solas interrupted his feverish thoughts once more. “Lethallin,” he said.

Abelas looked up to find Solas looking sadder than ever. “If an opportune moment should arise, please tell her…” 

He paused and studied Abelas in sorrowful silence for a moment longer before speaking. “Tell her I am sorry,” he whispered.

****************

Athera wiggled her bare toes in the grass, then delicately stepped through the field of toadstools. 

This particular patch of toadstools in the Frostback Basin had always amused her. The Avvar said they were poisonous weeds, and yet there were so many of them all in one place, almost as though they’d been planted. And they were just so deceptively _cute_ , with their venomous spotted red caps. Maybe that’s why her errant dreaming mind had decided to drop her here tonight. 

She wandered idly across the quixotic landscape of the Basin. The world around her resolved from a hazy glow to a shimmering brightness as she focused on bits and pieces of it: the sparkle of riverwater beneath her bare feet, the deep blue-green of the grass, the lush and trailing vines coating the rocky crags and cliffs. All the while, she couldn’t stop glancing at her precious left hand. 

She still had her hand in her dreams. Athera supposed this made sense; she’d only lost her left forearm eight days ago, after all. The stump itself was clean, the arm having crumbled away completely on their way back to the Winter Palace after her confrontation with Solas, but its absence was like a punch in the gut every time she looked at her stunted limb.

As she followed a waterfall up a cliff into a gently flowing river, she admired her erstwhile hand. A small throwing knife had materialized in her palm, and she twirled it in her fingers.

The smooth, familiar spin of the blade across her fingertips brought a burn of grief to her throat. She waded through the river while she twirled the knife, and soon she was in a wooded glen, deeply shaded by a towering canopy. 

She came to a stop facing a broad-trunked tree and brushed the floating mass of her long chestnut hair over her shoulders. The surreal drifting of her hair in the Fade was only a passing annoyance now. She was so used to the susurrus of ancient Sentinel voices in her head that she rarely had to use the phrase to calm them, that special elvhen phrase that Abelas had taught her-

 _Don’t think about him,_ Athera scolded herself, as she always did. She ran her index finger along the smoothness of the knife in her left hand. An instant later, she flung the weapon in a confident overhand throw, and it slammed into the trunk with a satisfying _thunk._

Athera smiled, and a tear ran down her face. The blade had already disappeared from the trunk, and a new blade was in her palm, ready to be thrown. 

_Thunk._ The tip sank unerringly into the bark, and Athera continued to throw knife after ethereal knife into the tree, sometimes with a spin and sometimes without, using different grips and techniques, savouring the way the metal slid through her fingers and across her palm as it took leave of her hand. 

Some time later, she paused in her practice and gazed lovingly at her palm. “We had a good run, you and I,” she muttered. “You always were good at cutting my meat, buttoning my pants, that sort of thing.” 

A tear dripped from her chin onto her outspread palm, and Athera wiped her face as she gazed vacantly into the depths of the wooded glen. It was peaceful and dim here, with tendrils of mist curling around her feet and the trunks of the trees, and the melancholy beauty of this place was a perfect match for her mood.

Then she caught a hint of movement through the trees.

Athera narrowed her eyes and peered into the woods. She wasn’t afraid; against all odds, Athera rarely had nightmares, and besides, she was protected: there was a dagger loosely balanced in each of her hands, and she glanced at them in satisfaction before taking a step deeper into the woods. 

“Is someone there?” she called. In real life, she would never do something so foolish as to announce her presence to a potential threat, but she’d always felt oddly invulnerable in her dreams. 

“Athera.”

She froze instantly. _That voice._ That silken voice, she _knew_ that voice - she loved that voice, she’d recognize it anywhere, and the treasured sound of it slammed the breath from her lungs. 

A fuzzy ringing of unreality began to fill her ears. She finally dragged in a breath that rasped at the inside of her throat. “It can’t be,” she breathed. It was an illusion. It couldn’t be him. She didn’t dare believe it. This kind of hope was a poison she couldn’t afford to take.

A shiver of golden light appeared in the depths of the glen. It was tiny as a firefly at first, but it swelled and grew into a globe of light that illuminated the long, slender fingers casting it, and the hooded face of the caster. 

There was no denying it. It was _him_. 

Shock prickled across Athera’s face and her arms, washing through her belly with a vertiginous surge and rendering her lightheaded. She pressed her trembling hands to her face. “Abelas?” she rasped. 

His characteristic stern gaze softened, and he pushed back his hood. “I hope I am not disturbing you.”

Athera stared at him, still breathless with disbelief. Two years had gone by without him, two years during which she’d tried to quash the remaining embers of hope that she would ever see him again.

But he was here. Abelas was here, in her dream, studying her with that soft but piercing gaze. 

He looked the same, but… not quite the same. His clothing was different - leathers and strange lush fabrics, more casual and yet somehow more striking than his armour. His vallaslin was dyed black by the darkness, and there were lines at the corners of his eyes and edges of his nose that hadn’t been there before. But his hair, his devastating golden eyes, the fullness of his lips, the sculpted lines of his thighs - it was the same as she remembered, and the familiarity of him just made this all the more bizarre.

He was so fucking beautiful. And _here_. Mythal’s bloody mercy, she couldn’t believe he was here. Why was he here?

“Are you a desire demon?” she said faintly. It was meant to be a joke, and a feeble one at that, but she clutched her face more tightly with a sudden fear that it was true. This was her heart’s deepest and most selfish desire, after all. If a corrupt spirit was ever going to exploit her, this is exactly how it would be done: by taking the form of the man she wanted more than anything in the world and couldn’t have. 

His face melted into a tiny smile. “Your caution is admirable,” he said softly. “But no. It is me, vhenan.” 

And that was it. That was all he needed to say. Suddenly she was pelting toward him, her feet flying across the mossy ground as fast as they could carry her, emotion rising in her throat like a boiling wave- 

Athera slammed into him and wrapped her arms around his chest, her breath bursting from her throat in a convulsive gasp. “You’re - I - why, why are you, what are you…” she choked out, unable to properly verbalize her frantically spinning thoughts. Finally she gave up and just buried her face against his chest.

Abelas wrapped one arm tightly around her shoulders. He stroked his other hand through the floating tendrils of her hair, smoothing it down and sliding his fingertips gently along her scalp, and an unwelcome sob clawed its way from her throat at his beloved touch. 

She squeezed her eyes shut to force back her tears and focused on his scent. Damn him, he even _smelled_ the same, a clean sharp bite of pine and the unique undefinable scent of him that always made her think of maple syrup and pillows. 

Abelas loosened his embrace and stroked the edge of her jaw, then tilted her chin up to face him, and Athera stared painfully back at him. Looking at him, taking in his beauty, it felt somehow like she was looking into the sun. The sorrowful affection in his face was both exquisite and agonizing, and almost impossible to bear. 

He brushed the edge of her lip with his thumb, and her reaction was instinctive: Athera parted her lips, and suddenly Abelas was kissing her.

His arm snaked around her waist in a crushing embrace, holding her tight and lifting her up onto her toes, and she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. She was fiercely thankful that the Fade had deigned to give her back her missing arm; only the tightness of this two-armed embrace was enough to express the scorching desperation that had been smoldering in her heart all this time. 

His lips gently coaxed her mouth open, his tongue smoothly tracing against her own, and Athera melted shamelessly into the dizzying joy of his kiss. She was flooded with him, bittersweet memories becoming honeyed again as his embrace chipped the bitterness away. She gloried in his beloved scent, the delicious taste of him, the sweet and passionate caress of his lips. She’d tried so hard to shunt these feelings to the back of her mind, but as she pressed herself eagerly against his body, she realized the truth: that her attempts to let him go had been a complete and utter failure. 

A long, heart-pounding moment later, Abelas gently broke their kiss. He peeled her left arm from around his neck, then inspected her hand sadly before kissing her palm. 

“Ir abelas,” he whispered. “I am sorry for your loss.” She watched as his gaze settled some distance behind her, where her discarded daggers lay forgotten on the ground. “I am… so very sorry,” he said quietly. 

Athera nodded tightly, her throat too full of unshed tears to speak. Abelas kissed her palm and then her knuckles. “Solas told me what happened,” he said. “The qunari-”

A sudden spike of anger stabbed through her breast, and Athera pulled her hand away. “Solas,” she spat. “Fen’Harel, you mean. You know, I suspected he was old like you. When he left after Corypheus, just disappearing like that without even a ‘see-you-later-lethallan’, and then you left the next day… I knew he was from ancient Elvhenan. I _knew_ it,” she railed. “But _Fen’Harel?_ The actual Fen’Harel?”

Abelas gazed steadily at her, his palms smoothing along her back as though to soothe her. “He wanted you to know he is sorry.”

A caustic little laugh burst from her lips, a sound so bitter that she could barely recognize it as a laugh at all. “He’s sorry? He lied about who he was for over a year, then he left without saying goodbye, then he reappears just to tell me he’s going to undo all the work we did to fix the Breach, and he’s _sorry?_ ” The worst part, Athera thought, was that her anger was not just a righteous rage for the people of their world. She was selfishly angry for herself. 

Aside from Varric, Solas had been her best friend. He’d travelled everywhere with her, teaching her about spirits and bolstering her flagging self-esteem when she doubted herself. He’d spent many evenings showing her exactly how he painted his fabulous murals, and he’d encouraged her to take up sketching as a way to calm her mind. 

Athera had come to see Solas as a beloved older brother. She’d trusted him. As much as he’d betrayed the Inquisition, he’d betrayed _her_. And to think she’d been happy at first to see him again… 

A wave of humiliation and hurt washed over her, and she smacked Abelas’s chest. “Apologies count for nothing! You can tell him to stuff his stupid apologies. Tell bloody Fen’Harel that I hate him,” she yelled. There was an aching part of her that knew she was being childish, that she was spoiling this precious visit by ranting like this, but she was just so damned raw.

Then she froze as something occurred to her - something so obvious that she wanted to slap herself for not thinking of it sooner.

Numbly and slowly, she disentangled herself from the Sentinel’s embrace. “He knows you’re here?” she asked. 

Abelas nodded, and Athera took a step away from him. “You’re working with him still.”

It wasn’t a question, but Abelas nodded again, and Athera forced herself to inhale through a fresh and agonizing surge of hurt. 

“You knew all along,” she accused. “You knew what he was planning, that he’s planning to… to tear down the Veil. Didn’t you?”

Abelas remained silent, but the answer was obvious in his sad but stoic expression. A nauseating thrum of agitation began to roil in her belly, and she couldn’t decide if she more wanted to punch Abelas for this deception, or to punch herself for being so stupid and blind as to only think about it now. 

“You were helping him with these plans all along,” she breathed. “You knew he was going to destroy everything, and still you… you and I…”

She trailed off and stared at him, taking in the slowly growing tragedy in his face, but for the first time, his sadness didn’t lift an answering sorrow in her heart. This time, his sadness only made her furious. 

“You bastard,” she hissed. She took a step toward him and shoved his chest, feeling further infuriated when her shove barely made him budge. “You - you…” She clenched her teeth to stem the wave of vitriol that was surging at the back of her throat. She wanted to accuse him of treachery, of disloyalty and deceit, but there was a weaselly little voice of logic at the back of her mind, and it was making her stay her tongue. 

Abelas had openly told her that he had plans he couldn’t share. He’d told her from the start that his greatest loyalty lay elsewhere, and he’d given her the choice to walk away. And Athera had refused. 

She could call Abelas a traitor all she wanted. But she was as much to blame as he for the noxious, poisonous yearning that festered still between them. For better or for much, much worse, the agonizing position she was in was one of her own making.

She glared at Abelas, breathing hard through the ache in her chest, but when she didn’t speak again, he took a tentative step toward her. When she didn’t move away, he reached out and took her hand. 

Athera swallowed hard as his thumb stroked her wrist. Despite her rage, her weak and spineless heart still wanted him. Her body was clamouring to be close to him, and as he stepped even closer, close enough that their bodies brushed together, she realized that her anger was already melting. Against all odds, Abelas had come to see her, and she didn’t want to waste this precious time by arguing. 

_Love has really made an idiot of me,_ she thought, as he reached up and cradled her neck in his palm. 

He slowly leaned toward her, and his lips grazed the edge of her ear. “ _I_ am sorry,” he whispered. “This life has not been kind to us.”

His words were heavy with resignation, and the remaining dregs of Athera’s fury dissolved at the broken tone of his voice. It was too painfully true: life hadn’t been kind to her, or to him. Or to Solas either, really.

Suddenly Athera was exhausted. She slumped against Abelas’s chest and slid her arms around his waist. He wrapped her in a firm embrace, and she pressed her cheek against him, wishing she was feeling the heat of his skin instead of the strange lush fabric of his tunic. 

She swallowed the growing lump in her throat. “I guess I should thank you for coming,” she whispered. “I know it’s no small thing for you to leave your… your responsibilities to see me.” She pressed her fingers into his back as though she could stop his Fadewalking form from slipping away.

“You make it sound as though I did not want to come,” he chided gently. “Athera, I have wanted…” He hesitated, then tried again. “If we had lived in any other time or world...” 

His voice faded into silence, his fingers combing softly through her hair and tracing the tip of her ear, and Athera clenched her teeth to hold back a painful throb of grief. The empty sensation of _so-close-yet-so-far_ loomed over them, and it all just seemed so desperately unfair. 

But it wasn’t unfair, was it? Not really. It was just… life.

Abelas’s tunic was damp beneath her cheek, and Athera ducked her head to wipe her face on her shoulder so she wouldn’t have to let him go. But he leaned away slightly, his fingers grazing her jawline to tip her chin up.

Athera pressed her face more firmly against his chest. “No,” she whimpered. “Don’t look at me. I’m a snotty mess.” She coughed out a wet little laugh. 

Abelas pressed his lips to the top of her head. “I have had to live on mere memories of you for years,” he told her quietly. “Let me see your face.”

She exhaled shakily. There was no arguing with that logic, not when it was delivered in his cherished voice. She allowed him to lift her chin. 

His gilded gaze roved slowly over her face. She could feel the puffiness of her eyes, and she had no doubt that her face was rough with salt and sadness, but from the heartbreaking tenderness in his eyes, she’d have thought she was the most exquisite woman in the world. 

He, however, was most certainly the most exquisite man she had ever seen. She stared hungrily at his eyes, his aquiline nose, his perfectly sculpted lips. She admired those new little crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes with bittersweet affection, wondering if they were a consequence of his not being in uthenera anymore. 

She reached up and traced her thumb across the subtle little lines in his skin. He gazed back at her unflinchingly, and Athera nervously bit the inside of her cheek. The silence between them was growing denser with every passing moment, and Athera wanted so badly to break it, but she couldn’t think of a single thing that she could say.

Not that there was nothing she _wanted_ to say. Unspoken words were piled like a midden heap at the back of her tongue. She wanted to ask about where he’d been and what he’d been doing and what stupid Solas was doing now, but she knew he wouldn’t answer. She wanted to tell him that there was a hole in her chest that was only filled again now that he was here, but saying that would change nothing, and putting that burden on him would be too cruel. 

She finally released a sad little chuckle. “We haven’t seen each other in two years, and somehow I have nothing to say,” she told him. “After all this time, and I just…” She traced the line of vallaslin across his cheekbone with the tips of her fingers. “I don’t know what to say, Abelas. What do I say?” 

He gently guided them down to sit in the lushness of the moss, and Athera immediately tucked her head against his shoulder, wanting to be as close to him as possible. His fingers continued to filter through her floating hair, and the mellow sound of his voice slid across her forehead like velvet. 

“Tell me what your friend has been writing,” he suggested. “The Child of the Stone.”

“Oh, Varric?” She smiled faintly and snuggled into him, relieved that he’d found something innocuous they could talk about. “He wrote a book about the Inquisition, actually. He just finished it. It’s been years since he wrote anything. I think he was inspired by… everything that’s happened.” She waved her hand vaguely. “But the end of his book leaves something to be desired. It’s kind of a cliffhanger ending. But I guess it matches real life pretty well.” She shrugged, her humour wavering as thoughts of the Inquisition drifted across her mind.

Athera had ultimately decided to keep the Inquisition as Leliana’s purported peacekeeping force, but she was haunted by the suspicion that she’d made the wrong choice. As much as she was angry at Solas, she also knew he had a point: any powerful organization was subject to corruption. Corruption had weakened the Grey Wardens and the Templars and the Chantry, after all. The infiltration of Solas’s spies was proof that the Inquisition was just as susceptible as any of those other groups had been. 

Athera sighed and leaned against her lover. “Abelas… I don’t know what I’m doing,” she confessed. “I don’t know what Solas told you, but this whole qunari business…” She shook her head in dismay. “Qunari spies _and_ Fen’Harel’s spies in our midst? Who else had spies among our people? And we didn’t even know. _I_ didn’t know.”

She ran her fingers through her slowly drifting cloud of hair. She _should_ have known. She was the Inquisitor, for Mythal’s sake. If she’d been more diligent, if she’d paid closer attention to the people they were bringing in, then maybe… 

She tugged at her hair in frustration, but Abelas’s gentle voice broke off her self-flagellating thoughts. “The Inquisition is a young organization,” he told her. “We, in contrast, are hardened and honed from centuries of war. And from what I understand, the qunari are the master spies of your world, are they not?” 

Athera nodded. “The Ben-Hassrath, yes.” 

Abelas nodded as well. “The Inquisition was outmatched in a fight that you did not know you were fighting,” he said. “A mistake that any inexperienced organization could make.” He carefully studied her face, and his eyes were serious but sympathetic. “It is not your fault.” 

She swallowed hard as she returned his gaze. His words were a little _too_ condescending to be considered truly comforting. His response was so starkly logical, and a little too blunt to be socially appropriate, and laced with a reminder that he was centuries older than her… It was all just so _Abelas_ that a fresh lump of longing began to swell in her chest.

 _Gods above, I’ve missed you. You’re stubborn and old and a little bit rude, and I’ve missed you so fucking much._ The thought screamed through her mind, and she was momentarily horrified that she might have voiced it out loud. But Abelas continued to gaze steadily into her eyes, and finally she managed to cover the ache in her chest with a hollow little laugh. “So basically, the Inquisition is a bunch of bumbling children trying to play with the big boys.”

“No, I - that is _not_ what I meant,” Abelas said sharply, a frown creasing the vallaslin on his brow, but Athera smoothed her hand along his thigh and shook her head. 

“It’s all right,” she said. “You’re not wrong, really. Solas… ugh, as much as I _hate_ to admit it, he had a point.” She sighed, then flopped back on the ground and stared sadly up at the darkness of the canopy. 

She folded her precious left arm under her head. “Have I made a mistake?” she wondered. “Maybe it would be better if we disbanded…”

Abelas slowly stretched out beside her, and she shot him a sideways glance. “I really shouldn’t be talking about this with you,” she said. He was working with Fen’Harel, after all. She and Abelas weren’t on the same side anymore. 

But she supposed that they never really had been at all. 

A throb of distress pulsed in her throat, and she swallowed hard to squash it down. Then Abelas shuffled closer to her and slid his hand across her belly to curve around her hip. “You once asked what I would do if I had not been a Sentinel,” he said. “What would you do if you were not the Inquisitor?” 

His thumb was idly stroking circles on her skin through her thin cotton shift, and Athera inhaled slowly at his careful touch. His hand on her hip was an innocent caress, but his hands were the only ones that had touched her with such aching familiarity in years. And his hands were the only ones that had ever made her feel like this, like there was a crystalline hum resonating just beneath her skin. 

She cleared her throat awkwardly and forced her suddenly scrambling thoughts to focus on his words. “What would I…? Um, I don’t know, really.” She took another deep breath as she began to actually consider his question. She genuinely wasn’t sure that maintaining the Inquisition was a good idea, but the idea of her future without the Inquisition was just… empty. A big, blank unknown.

“I guess I could go back to my clan. I do miss them,” she said slowly. “But…” She trailed off into silence. In truth, Athera wasn’t sure she could face them. She was having a hard enough time accepting the ugly truths that Solas had told her. Imagine trying to explain everything to her clan without any proof of what she was saying…

She sighed and closed her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what I would do. For better or worse, I’m the Inquisitor. It’s what I swore I would be until they told me they didn’t need me anymore. But now… maybe my role isn’t in their best interest anymore.” 

She rubbed a hand over her face, feeling tired down to her bones. “Honestly, Abelas, if I wasn’t the Inquisitor, I don’t know what I would do,” she said honestly.

“You could join us.”

Athera froze. “What?” she said faintly. She must have misheard him.

But Abelas’s gaze was steady on her face, and she had never seen him look more serious. “You could join Fen’Harel’s cause,” he said quietly. “When this world falls… you do not have to fall with it.” 

Athera stared at him in growing disbelief. Join Fen’Harel’s cause? Fen’Harel himself hadn’t invited her to join him. 

She lifted herself onto her elbows. “Did Solas tell you to recruit me?” she demanded. Why else would Abelas ask her to join the Dread Wolf?

To her surprise, however, he hesitated. “No,” he finally said. “But I know that he is fond of you. He does not wish to see you come to harm.” 

Athera slowly pushed herself onto her knees. “And that’s why you want me to join him? You don’t want me to die?” 

Abelas frowned at her like she was being facetious. “Of course I do not want you to die,” he replied. 

“Then you should have thought about that before going along with Solas’s terrible plan!” she cried. “Abelas, he’s willing to kill every single person I know. He’s willing to kill every person in this world! I can’t… in good conscience, I can’t side with someone who’s planning to do that.” 

“You speak as though we embrace this sacrifice with open arms,” he retorted. “There is no joy in this, Athera. This is the only way to restore our people. We are a dying race, and we are dying because of the nature of your world. _You_ are dying as a result of the world you live in!”

Somehow she and Abelas were on their feet again, facing each other like opponents in a sparring ring, and she stared up into his scowling face with rising frustration. “But that’s not our fault!” she protested. “That’s… it’s literally _his_ fault! And somehow _we’re_ the ones who will bear the consequences of his actions?”

“He has no choice!” Abelas snapped. “There is no other way to save our people!” 

“You really believe that?” Athera drawled, unable to shave the sarcasm from her voice. “Come on, Abelas. Look at how bloody powerful he is! He _made_ the Veil, for Mythal’s sake. You really think he has no other choice but to wipe us all out?”

Abelas glared at her in silence, and a weak part of her heart quailed at the look of absolute fury on his face. He turned away from her, and despite the anger that was thrumming through her chest, she wanted so badly to reach out to him, to stroke a pleading hand along his broad shoulders and to beg for them to stop this terrible fight… 

She clenched her fists and bit her tongue. Her racing heart thudded in her ears as she waited for him to reply. Finally he turned around to face her, and the cold composure of his expression was like a punch to her stomach. 

“ _You_ have a choice,” he said flatly. “You can choose to join our cause. Other elves of your time have been joining us for years.” His expression softened slightly, and he took a small step toward her. “You should come and be with your people.” 

Athera clenched her teeth. He was so inflexible, so damned stubborn, and she wanted to hit him as much as she wanted to pull him close and clutch him tight. 

She raised her chin and fought to control her own expression. “You said it yourself, years ago,” she said. “I am not your people.” 

Abelas frowned. “That was - I did not know you then!” he said defensively. 

“And you don’t know anyone else in my world except for me!” she yelled. “You never even tried! At least Solas got to know us.” She suddenly stopped, incredulous at herself for her inadvertent defense of the Dread Wolf, then burst out a mirthless little laugh. “You know what, that just makes it worse. Solas knew us, and he’s still going through with his horrible plan. That’s just…” She ran her hands through her hair in frustration. “Creators, I really am stupid. I can’t believe I trusted him. Or you! Either of you.” 

She glared at Abelas and tried to ignore the welling of tears at the edges of her eyes. “I can’t believe you would ask me to join him,” she said. “How could you ask this of me? You, who values loyalty and duty over everything, you’re asking me to ditch my-” 

Abelas suddenly surged toward her, and Athera gasped as his strong slender fingers cradled her neck. “I am not asking you to betray your principles,” he hissed. “I am asking you to be reasonable. You are more elvhen than half of our recruits. You belong with us. You belong with…” 

He trailed off, his chest heaving with emotion, and Athera took a tremulous breath as he pressed his forehead to her own. “You do not have to die with this world,” he rasped. “Athera, I… I cannot watch you die.” 

A thrill of hope pulsed hotly through her belly. Her ancient warrior was softening, his composure crumbling before her very eyes. Perhaps his hardened logic was finally buckling under the weight of their horrendous reality. 

Shamelessly she pressed her advantage. She grasped his wrists, his arms, his hips, pressed herself close against his body. “Then help me,” she begged. “You want to save me? Help me. _You_ should join _me._ ”

He didn’t answer. His breathing was harsh and heavy, and Athera tensely watched his parted lips as he breathed, felt the tension in his fingers on her neck. Her request hung in the air, heavy and unanswered, and Athera knew he couldn’t say yes. She knew he couldn’t shirk his duty to Fen’Harel. But until the refusal left his lips, she could fantasize about a sparkling, unreal future, a future where she didn’t walk a blighted path with an empty cave inside her chest; a future where her ancient lover stood by her side. 

_You should join me._ It was a request she would never have dared to make before, but things were different now. They were working at cross purposes now. If Abelas said no… 

A long, agonizing moment later, he slid his hands into her long dark hair. “I cannot, vhenan,” he breathed. “You know I cannot.” 

His voice was cracked with sorrow. A defeated tear escaped from Athera’s closed eyelids. “And I can’t join you,” she whispered.

And there it was. The ugliest, most odious truth that had been hovering over them since the moment they’d met tonight, and which Athera had been so studiously trying to avoid: that she and Abelas were enemies, and there was no compromise to be had. 

His thumb drifted gently across her cheek, diverting the river of her tears on her face. Her wild and drifting hair was captured, twined gently in his dexterous fingers, and she released a tiny sob of a breath as he slowly tugged her head back. The fullness of his lower lip brushed between her own, soft and silken like a petal of embrium.

She leaned into his kiss, her palms flat on the hardened planes of his bare stomach. Finally his heat was hers, liquid-smooth skin poured over the leanness of his elvhen frame, and Athera vaguely thanked the quixotic nature of the Fade for stripping away the feeble barrier of their clothes.

She slid her hands around his back, tenderly tracing the lean lines of his muscles up to the ridges of his shoulder blades. He was strong and solid beneath her palms, and Athera marvelled at the casual cruelty of life; how could she have found this man who’d made her feel so safe, who made her heart and her blood sing in harmony, only to have him revealed as her most intractable enemy?

His thumbs slid along the nape of her neck and the corner of her jaw, his lips peeling away from her own to follow the path of his thumb as it moved down the line of her neck. His nose brushed along her collarbone with a gentle inhale, and Athera cradled his precious jaw in her hands, turning her head to press her lips to his forehead. His hands were infinitely gentle, exploring the peaks of her breasts and the lines of her ribs as though he’d never felt the like before. When he made to kneel at her feet, she tightened her fingers at the back of his neck to stop him.

Athera wanted more than an orgasm at the mercy of her lover’s mouth. This wasn’t just sex. This wasn’t just a moment of long-denied desire set free. This was a synthesis. It was the only possible fusion for two ill-fated lovers. This was the forging of a memory, the last good one she and Abelas might ever make. Athera and Abelas stood on stark and opposite sides, and if this carnal recourse was the only agreement they could come to, then she wanted to make it face-to-face. 

He lifted his lips from her sternum to look at her, and she shook her head gently. “Stay up here with me,” she whispered. “I want you close.” 

He rose to his full height and nodded, his eyes sad and grave, and Athera knew he understood. 

Then he abruptly pressed her back against a smoothly wooded tree.

Athera gasped. His hip was angled against her belly, his thigh between her legs, and she instinctively rose on her tiptoes and grasped his shoulders to press herself more firmly against his thigh. Then he captured her gasping lips with a heated kiss. 

His strong and slender fingers drifted low, sliding hot and gentle over her belly. His knee fell away from the apex of her thighs as his fingers took control, and Athera whimpered into the slickness of his tongue. He slowly smoothed two fingers along the slippery length of her cleft, pressing and caressing the plumpness of her flesh, ignoring the swelling of her clit until she was twisting her hips pleadingly against his hand.

In contrast with Athera’s writhing lust, Abelas was a picture of perfect tender calm. He gently kissed the corner of her lips and the edge of her jaw, and Athera whined with need as his fingers continued their slow and gentle stroke. His palm was pressed against her mound, a torturous light pressure that hovered over the pulsing pearl at her center, and Athera arched her back, pressing her breasts toward his chest in a bid for attention. 

His tongue traced the edge of her earlobe. “Talk to me,” he murmured. “Tell me what you like.”

His voice was low and persuasive, a velveteen ribbon against her ear, and Athera gasped in a breath before obeying. “I like it when you touch me,” she whimpered. The words were paltry, generic and staid, and it wasn’t enough; Abelas deserved more, deserved better praise for the way his torturing fingers were teasing her, the way his gentle stroking touch made her feel. 

She took another deep breath and tried again. “I like when you stroke me slowly,” she told him. “I like when you tease around my clit… oh gods, _yes_ , like that,” she cried, then slammed her head back against the tree as his first two fingers framed her hooded clit, sliding sweetly along the sides of the tiny bud. 

His chest was hot against her skin, and his breath was hot against her ear. “How does it make you feel?” he breathed.

“Good,” she whined. Creators and Forgotten Ones alike, it felt better than good; it was marvelous and terrible, beautiful and wretched and torturous and addictive, and gods above, she _missed_ this bloody feeling- 

“Tell me,” he commanded quietly. 

“I feel it in my throat,” she whined. His fingers were stroking the periphery of her swollen nub, down her cleft and back up to her clit, and her nails bit into his shoulders convulsively as her climax began to rise. “I - when you make me come, I - I feel it in my eyes and I can’t see, I can’t stay standing, I - Abelas, it’s -”

Her words failed her, melting into a wail of pleasure as his careful stroking fingers lifted her to her zenith. Fireflies scattered behind her closed eyelids, and Abelas took her weight with his free arm as her trembling calves gave way. 

Athera bit his chest, her pleasure cries muffled against his skin, then threw her head back and arched viciously as his stroking fingers pierced into her heat. “Abelas!” she wailed. 

His fingers slid in and out, each thrust punctuated with a gentle curl of his fingertips, and Athera grabbed his neck, pulling him in for a passionate kiss. She grabbed at his shoulders and spread her legs wide to thrust back against his hand, marvelling at how the coaxing sweep of his fingers drove her need ever higher.

Suddenly she pushed his hand away, then undulated against the hardness of his body, pushing herself onto her tiptoes so she could try and wrap one leg around his waist. She nipped his tongue, suckled his lower lip, rubbed her breasts against his chest, _please Abelas, please-_

His hands grasped her bottom, and she moaned as he pumped the steely rod of his manhood against her belly. “Tell me what you want,” he groaned. 

She arched into him in despairing desperation, unable to say she really wanted. Athera wanted _him_ , everything about him: his tenderness and his stubbornness, his exasperating elf-centric views and his empathetic listening ear. She was empty without him, a cold and lonely body and a half-lit soul, but there was only so much she could ask. 

When she didn’t immediately answer, Abelas tilted her chin back, and she stared feverishly into the glowing golden light of his eyes. “Athera,” he ordered. “Tell me what you want.”

He was all Sentinel, a confident warrior with command dripping from every pore, and a fresh wave of sheer unstoppable _want_ pooled in her core and trickled hotly down the inside of her thigh. 

“I want you to fill me up,” she begged. “Fill me, fuck me, give me…” She broke off and wrapped her fist around his cock. “Fill me up, Abelas, _please,_ ” she whimpered.

He inhaled sharply, a needy hiss of sound through his teeth, then suddenly he lifted her up, and Athera released a piercing cry as he sheathed himself inside of her. 

His hard and gorgeous length pushed deep, striking her inner walls and sending a deep and pulsing thrust of pleasure through her abdomen. His hands were tight under her thighs, his hips pistoning powerfully against her in a deep and steady stroke, and Athera grasped the back of his neck and thrust her chest toward his face. He wrapped his lips around her nipple, and Athera sobbed with pleasure at the stroke of his tongue and the tender nip of his teeth. 

Then she wrapped her fist in his long silvery braid and pulled.

Abelas released her breast with a feral groan. Suddenly Athera was on her back on the lush mossy ground, his hands prying her knees apart, his incandescent gilded eyes intent on her face, his teeth bared like the wolf he served- 

He slammed his cock inside of her, and Athera arched her back and screamed her pleasure to the dark and distant canopy. His hand cupped her breast, his thumb teasing the hardness of her nipple, and Athera grabbed his hand and pressed it hard against her flesh. She wanted his hands on her body, everywhere on her skin, burning away her despair with his talented touch.

He pumped into her with a hard, slow stroke, his eyes still firmly fixed on her face, and Athera panted helplessly as she stared back at him. With every careful thrust he lowered himself toward her, bringing that scorching gaze closer, until finally he was looming over her, his weight on one arm and his other hand cradling the back of her neck.

She slid her palms around his waist and up his back, curling her pelvis to take him more deeply. She lifted her chin and brushed her lips to his. “You tell me what you like, now,” she begged. “ _You_ talk to me.” It wasn’t praise she sought, not at all; it was his smooth and beloved voice. If only she could hear him every day, his voice rough and scratchy every morning and loose with relaxation and release every night… 

A vicious burn of regret scorched her eyes, and she ruthlessly shunted it aside by kissing him hard. His steely length slid deep inside of her, and she released his lips with a gasp. “Please,” she cried. 

He exhaled against her cheek. “The heat of you,” he breathed. “That is what I like. And the tightness of you.”

He stroked the line of her cheekbone with his thumb, and Athera moaned as he pumped his hips against her own. “I like to watch your face,” he murmured. “You bite your lips, and the expression on your face... I love to watch your face.”

He pressed his hips down, and she clenched her nails in his back as his pelvic bone pressed against her clit. The pressure was indirect, light and teasing and bloody _perfect_ , and a feral little groan shuddered from her throat. 

Abelas chuckled softly against her ear. “I love the sounds you make. You are hungry, and hunger makes you loud. I love to hear your sounds.” 

She gave a breathless little laugh at the dirty timbre of his voice, then cried out as the grinding of his hips coaxed a fresh surge of pleasure between her legs. His cock was steady inside of her, the rolling grind of his pelvis playing just right against her taut nub, and Athera gasped fitfully, tilting her hips in eager little jerks to meet him.

At last, the surging wave of her climax slammed over her. She arched her back viciously and screamed, a cry of ecstasy that echoed in the deep and misty air. Then Abelas’s arms slid beneath her to wrap around around her waist, his lips grazing her jaw as he clutched her in a tight embrace. 

“Athera,” he begged. “You are… This…” He broke off into harsh and heavy panting, his lean and potent hips rising and falling against her. The sweetness of his cock sank deep, spreading a shivering pleasure through her abdomen and up to her throat, and Athera bucked toward him, their bodies meeting hard and swift in a desperate crash of passion. 

His breathing grew jagged, low little whimpers signalling his imminent loss of control. When he finally groaned and shuddered against her, his final hard thrust pulled a helpless whimper of bliss from the depths of her chest. 

She wrapped her boneless arms around his neck, her fingers sliding idly along the length of his silvery braid. They lay together in comfortable quiet, Athera running her fingers along the flowing lines of his hair as he inhaled and exhaled slowly into her collarbone. 

Finally, though she was truly didn’t want to, Athera broke the silence. “You don’t have to go yet, do you?” she whispered. She needed to know how limited their time was, how much of this infinitely valuable visit was left to her. 

Abelas lifted himself onto his elbows, and she greedily drank in his stark and handsome face. “No,” he said softly. “I will leave when…” 

He trailed off, and Athera swallowed hard. “When I wake up,” she finished, and he nodded. 

She inhaled deeply. A passing wish for uthenera crossed her mind, and she ruthlessly shunted the melodramatic thought aside.

She released her breath, then shifted out from beneath him. Together they settled at the base of a large and gnarly tree, and Athera curled up in Abelas’s lap and tucked her head against the comfort of his neck. 

By unspoken agreement, the ugly topic of their enmity didn’t arise again. They spoke of small things, inconsequential memories from long before they had ever met. Athera basked in the richness of his voice as he spoke, and from the softness of his expression, she knew her lover was absorbing the sound of her voice with the same bittersweet gusto. His fingers combed and soothed her ever-floating hair as they talked, and she stroked the lean lines of his muscles through the smooth scarred veil of his warrior’s skin. 

Time ebbed and flowed in a slow mercurial swirl as they lounged together in the glen. Talk gradually turned to touching, their tongues and fingers and bodies moving from tender to torrid and back to tender again in a perpetual cycle as the deceptively idyllic night spun out. The only vague signal of time’s passage was an almost imperceptible change in the illumination of the glen.

As Athera listened to her lover’s stories, she ignored the subtly changing light. It was nothing to her, just an insignificant element of the background; everything of importance was in her grasp. She was securely seated on Abelas’s lap, the reassuring hardness of his chest under her palms, and his velvety voice enfolded her more securely than a heated blanket.

“... and that was the last time I ate meat for… almost fourteen years,” he concluded. “A very short span, I know. But feasts proved too strong a temptation when I was so young. I am much more disciplined now.” He brushed an errant strand of her hair back behind her ear. “Unless a certain _veraisa_ tempts me with cake.” 

His faintly teasing tone couldn’t hide the wistfulness in his face, and Athera studied him with a bone-deep ache of sadness. His longing for Arlathan was so obvious in the stories that he told. Of course he couldn’t join her side. He was fighting to restore the world he had loved so much. How could one single woman compete with that?

His vallaslin creased with sympathy as he studied her in turn. “What is wrong?” he asked. 

_Everything,_ she thought sadly, but she shook her head and shrugged. “Nothing,” she said instead. “Just… the idea of a young Abelas. You make yourself sound like such an awkward youth. I bet you had your pick of the ladies in Arlathan.” 

He huffed in denial, and Athera finally smiled. She lifted her hand to trace the sculpted curve of his lips.

Or tried to, at least. But her left hand was gone.

A pulse of shock rippled through her chest, followed by a dull roar of horror. Her gaze snapped to her left arm: the forearm was still there, but it was dissipating in the early dawn light, dissolving bit by bit like it was never there.

But then, she thought with a wrench of despair, it _was_ no longer there, not truly. In the real world where she needed it the most, her arm was gone for good.

Just like Abelas.

“Athera,” he breathed.

Her gaze flew back to his face. His golden eyes were wide with horror and fixed on her disappearing arm. 

He grabbed her left bicep, his fingers gripping firmly as though to hold her in place. His expression was uncharacteristically frantic now as he banded his other arm around her waist and pulled her tight against his chest. 

Athera cradled his neck in her remaining hand. She kissed him hard, focusing every scrap of her mind on the feel of his lips against her own - _fiery light of dawn through the curtains, no no_ \- then leaned away and looked him in the eye. 

“Abelas,” she said, and his desperate gaze fell on her face.

The moment was here, the moment when reality sunk its claws back into her and dragged her back to the darkness of her life - _pillow beneath my cheek, no please no_ \- and the flood of unspoken words was clawing at the back of her throat again. 

She and her lover stood on two sides of a very clear line. They understood each other well, and they both knew the other couldn’t budge. The next time she saw his stern and handsome face, it would likely end in blood. In the face of this horrendous truth, she couldn’t bear to let her heart stay silent anymore.

She stroked his jaw and stared into his beautiful golden eyes. “I love you,” she blurted.

His face fell, his expression becoming haggard with distress, and Athera watched in agony as a tear ran down his face.

She reluctantly released his neck to wipe the spill of grief from her own cheeks. “I love you, Abelas,” she said fiercely. “When you see me on the battlefield, no matter what happens, I want you to remember that.” 

_Sunlight spilling across the ceiling - my foot is cold, it’s poking out of the blankets, pull it back in, stay under, stay don’t leave don’t wake up no no no-_

His hands cupped her face and she snapped back into the glen, but everything was blurry now. His face was fading away, he was trying to speak but his mouth was blurring, blending into the blankness of the background, bleeding away into nothingness… 

His voice. His beloved voice. It was so faint. She could barely hear a word. “Vhenan-” 

Athera opened her eyes.

She stared numbly at her bedside table. Her body felt far too heavy and her left arm felt far too light, and for a long, terrible moment, she simply lay unmoving, anesthetized with hopelessness.

Her arm was gone. Her lover was gone. And the agony of both losses was as crippling now as when both wounds were fresh. 

Some indefinable amount of time later, someone knocked on the door to her quarters, and Athera dragged her aching body from her bed. 

She dressed with some difficulty, and the serving girl at the door helped to braid her hair. When Athera’s traitorous mind conjured the memory of a warrior’s slender fingers twisting her hair into elaborate elvhen plaits, she didn’t have the strength to shunt the memory aside.

She trudged down the stairs and forced her grief-sodden mind to focus. She would go and speak to Charter, then she would go and speak to Cullen. Then she would drown herself in other tasks, tasks that were big or small, menial or major, until the softness of glowing golden eyes was buried beneath the weight of all her work. 

The Inquisitor’s job was never done, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Elvhen terms, courtesy of FenxShiral: 
> 
> \- _da’panelaan_ : young soldiers/fighters. Abelas’s term for the modern elves who have joined their cause.  
> \- _veraisa_ : one who pulls at sexual desire. Similar to the slang term ‘vixen’ in English. This term appears in [Message Sent](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3457130/chapters/10503558).
> 
>    
> Guys, I promise you, I do love Athera and Abelas; this was really hard for me to write, but I personally haven't given up hope. Maybe DA4 will give me opportunities to salvage this... 
> 
> In the meantime, if anyone wants to come yell at me or throw tomatoes or whatever, [I'm Pikapeppa on Tumblr.](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/) xoxo


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